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Heading out to the Northern Adriatic via Belgium, the Mosel in Germany, another little peep at Alsace, a Swiss lake, Northern Italian lakes and mountains and the boggy bit of the Venice Lagoon.  Above: the North Eastern part of the large stretch of water that contains the city of Venice is part lagoon and part swamp, which makes it a fascinating place to explore ... this is the Lio Piccolo (small beach or hamlet) with its campanile with a dark sky behind and the sun on our backs. It was also the final destination of the first leg of this travel blog/ The Alps were always going to be a major feature of our journey to the periphery of Venice, but first we needed to get there. No need to recall getting from Faringdon to Dover every time we go on one of these trips but the holiday always seems to commence once we're safely ensconced on LeShuttle, whether it be in Campy or our car. Having disembarked in France our first stop was planned for a place in Belgium where the cycling infrastructure was a bit of a legend. We had Campy, Campy had a garage that could accommodate at least 3 bicycles. East Belgium had hundreds of kilometres of dedicated cycle routes. One of them, the attractively named RAVeL S45A, intersected with a splendid lakeside campsite on the edge of Bütgenbach on the Eastern edge of the Eastern region of Wallonia. What could possibly go wrong? Actually nothing. The 3rd picture below shows off the state of the cycle route. Not a track, not a trail but a pukka route, just for cycles, that goes for miles and miles and miles. At one point it passes the town which has many of the facilities not included in the already well-stocked campsite. Sadly we only had a late afternoon and morning before moving on to our next destination on the Mosel River. Such are the ways of perhaps trying to do too much in two months.  Above (l-r, top-bottom): Campy installed in the tunnel train; our coast to coast route #1; Belgian bike route (RAVeL S45A) at Butgenbach with a little early morning frost in April; a view of Malberg having entered Germany; Campy finally at rest on the Mosel; time for a glass of Riesling; and to watch the barges in the sunset, A brief aside before picking up our main journey again ... Sometime in the Southern Hemisphere winter of 1977 I won a competition with Mercedes Benz to see who could get the furthest distance out of a new diesel car they were launching. The prize was a visit to the Frankfurt Motor Show in September of that year. Coincidentally Mercedes took first and second place in the London to Sydney on the 27th of September at the same time. It had been obvious that this was about to happen and, with the motor show finishing on the 25th, the second half of my trip (to the Merc Stuttgart facility and the local Oktoberfest) had to be postponed until the end of the month. "If we flew you to the UK for a week while we handle the PR could you occupy yourself?" the Head of Daimler Benz PR asked me. What a question? So I had some free time to spend with an old buddy, Phil Duff, who was living near Frankfurt and some days in the UK revisiting old journo mates scattered around England and Wales. Phil had recently abandoned his job as a photographer at a local regional newspaper in Greater London and was selling Kirby vacuum cleaners in Germany, working his fingers to the bone, but managed to free up some weekend time at the end of that month. Accompanied by his then girlfriend, we launched his decrepit Opel Rekord diesel from somewhere near Frankfurt towards Koblenz and the confluence of the Mosel and the Rhine. A loop of more than 200 miles (some 5 hours in the car). If we left early and aimed to get back late we'd have maybe 7 hours for sightseeing and drinking wine in various Mosel-side towns. One of these was Bernkastel-Kues. We were young then.   Above (l-r, top-bottom, first 4 from 1977, thereafter 2016): the Mosel from the castle; across the river to the town; c'est moi in the castle; Phil Duff and friend. Across the river from another, more recent angle; Shan spots a boutique; there have to be wine shops in the Mosel towns; city space was limited beside the Mosel; love-ly vines on the outskirts; resting the legs with a beer; where next; Bernkastel-Kues has flooded a few times in the past 4 centuries. Bernkastel-Kues is a fine example of Mosel towns that squeeze onto a narrow ledge of land between the river and the top-notch vineyards that tumble down the steep slopes defining the river's course. During my first visit to the area in 1977, launches of that year's wines in many of the towns lining the river had whetted a nascent appetite. Quite a festival of mostly fine Riesling[1]. Now Shan and I were returning 40 years later and had safely parked Campy beside the river. There was beer and wine to be had and it seemed a short bike ride to the closest tavern. That is, until the heavens opened without much warning, leaving a bedraggled but merry couple to wait out the rain, that stopped as suddenly as it had started, before successfully attempting the return journey. After a relaxing few days sucking up the ambience on the banks this wonderful river at Erden, which is served by a typically efficient German bus service, we had to move on South ... to Alsace. To the banks of a tributary of the Rhine, the Ill, which flows past Colmar, a city whose architecture is not dissimilar to the Mosel towns in its charming architecture. We'd visited Alsace 6 years earlier, on the way back from a birthday party in Piemonte and majored on the smaller towns. Colmar was pretty, with its own charms, but if I had to choose again, I think I'd stick to the smaller towns. Possibly because they seemed more wine centric. Of course the larger city had shopping opportunities that we explored and every place has its photographic attractions. Above (l-r, top-bottom): a typical shopping street in Colmar; one of my favourites, a woman, her phone and her cat; colourful ice cream and sweet shop; a charcuterie in the tradition of such things. I suspect we topped up with essential exotic victuals at the charcuterie and carted them off to Campy to resume our journey South-Eastwards with what we thought would be a relaxed, scenic three-hour drive across Switzerland to our next campsite on the Eastern edge of the Brienzersee. Well we did choose the most scenic route but the last section was far from relaxed. Terrifying might be a more accurate description. We had been beguiled by avoiding Lucerne, wafting through the Unesco biosphere at Entlebuch and the thrill of the penultimate stretch named Panoramastrasse before it emerged, eventually, on to a "sensible" stretch of road at Giswil, leaving us a fairly sensible half-hour drive to our campsite close to Brienz. When you see something named Panoramastrasse in Switzerland, they do really mean it. OK, it would be fine if you were equipped with Mont Ventoux defying calf muscles and a pushbike with great brakes but if your transport is a 7.2 metre motor home that is 2.3 metres wide and 2.9 metres high ... We should have had fair warning when the earlier part of our "short cut" took us through a vast steeply sloping meadow that went on for kilometres. The road surface was in perfect nick and looked idyllic until it became obvious the extensive bits of it were roughly 2.3 metres wide and the passenger in our left-hand-drive vehicle was sitting perched over an abyss looking down over the tops of tall pine trees some distance below. Eventually we had to descend and that was when we encountered the Panoramastrasse winding its way down to Giswil. Each bend all but doubles back on itself and the road can accommodate ONLY one vehicle ... with very occasional passing places, seemingly designed for a Renault 2CV ... I'll leave it to your imagination! The passenger doesn't really have a much easier time of it, either, already terrified and having to mop the driver's proverbial brow. Suffice to say that neither of us enjoyed the full benefits of the view. We WERE able to wallow in the spectacular outlook, though, when we had parked our van with vistas of Brienzersee and the mountains in all directions. We were there for three days, which enabled us to relax for a day or so and me to take my bike for a hilly little 40 km trip around the perimeter of the lake via Interlaken.. The rest of the time was spent lolling around on a little beach in the sunshine. A slight peacefulness caveat were certain times of the day when jets were taking off from the local military base. This was fairly annoying but we got over it. Above (l-r, top-bottom): early evening views over Brienzersee (x2); Shan able to relax with a few rays after our descent; Campy enjoying the view over the lake; mountains and waterfalls above Brienz; someone else relaxing after a bike ride; sun sinking behind one of the many pollarded trees on the Brienz waterfront; after the sun drops, them hobbits emerge; my Long Haul Trucker enjoying the view after a steep kilometre climb up the South side of the lake; lights come on in the early Brienz evening. Apart from the bike ride, the only real exercise for Shan and me was a 5 km walk along the lakeside from the campsite into Brienz and back. Sadly, it seemed mid-April was a trifle early in the season to enjoy an al fresco supper on the waterside promenade. E cosí in Italia ... I suppose Italy was always our ultimate destination for this two-month long trip. Venice without actually visiting that city was our Easternmost extremity. We'd visited the great city and its canals in 2007 and been there for Palm Sunday. We'd flown with Kate to Milan and while she'd gone off with her school to Southern Italy we'd travelled by train to Venice, On our return journey to Milan we had a lot of time to ponder what lay between the two legendary cities while the train was stationary for several hours because of some fault on the railway network. We promised ourselves we'd return to do justice to the Po Valley and its pocket cities. But work and other commitments intervened and it was a decade later when, now armed with Campy, we were back to complete that commitment. More of that in #2 of this saga coming shortly. In the mean time, in #1, we still have to get to the North Eastern part of the lagoon that has Venice at its centre ...  Left: Campy's new spot 3.5 hours down the road from our Swiss temporary home. We were moving inexorably toward the Adriatic, and were now perched on the banks of the River Mera. This river is slightly weird in that it flows from the Alps into Lago di Mezzola and then out again before joining Lago di Como, Italy's third largest. Our new temporary home was between the two lakes near Sorico. We spent a few relaxing days exploring this lesser-known area of Northern Italy and made good use of our bicycles to get a feeling of the place. Being a lesser known area, and because I'm writing this 10 years after the fact, my capabilities of identifying a few of our landmarks are shrouded in the mists of various illnesses and just general ignorance around the more esoteric extremes of the internet. So I'll stick some pictures below of highlights of a bike ride along the banks of the Mera and the upper reaches of Lake Como and be amazed if one of my friends demonstrates finer knowledge than I am able to ... Our trip beyond Sorico will take Campy into some of the scarier territory for two lovebirds of (then 35 years of harmony) and any voluntary information around the gaps I have missed will be gratefully received in the blog comment section provided..   Above (top-bottom, l-r): view from La Punta on the left bank of the Mera across the top of Lake Como; La Punta beach looking across to Sorico; Shan on the deluxe bike highway along the right bank of the Mera; looking back along the coast with the old and the new - spot the grand old lakeside villa in the lower right hand corner; the same villa from close, showing off its view; a very splendid church complex (names on a postcard {comment} if you recognise it); a glorious bike ride deserved a gorgeous risotto lunch with a glorious view of the lake. We left Lake Como and headed almost due East. Except there was no road due East so we scooted along a pretty dreary valley going ENE wishing we could wander over the impenetrable snow-capped mountains to the South of us, suddenly swinging due South where the Fiume Sarca gathered its strength en route to Lake Garda. We parted company with the river at Sarche to climb the next escarpment to Vason and our next overnight stop in the carpark of the Monte Bondone Snowpark overlooking the spectacular view of the Pasubio Massif. Above (l-r, top-bottom): stopped for the night in a Parco Naturale between Sorico and Vason; mountains everywhere with the high Alps in the background; brave cyclists approaching the zenith; Vason achieved. I don't really take photos to sell them but I occasionally stick one on the Adobe marketplace with very little payback. I suppose that if I have one that has earned more than others, it was taken from said car park.   Above (top-bottom): Campy nestles in the car park overlooking the Monte Bondone Snowpark (what snow? ed) with what appears to be the Pasubio Massif and the 2,230m Cima Palon somewhere in there; this pic earned me a few bob. Are the Dolomites officially part of the Alps[2]? It can be quite confusing and we were about to enter the former and possibly remain in the latter on our trek down to "not Venice". Our first "obstacle", one of great beauty, lay in the way. With (there is some debate about the exact number) 29 hairpin bends to get to the top of the pass, it is a feat however the count is conducted. Our total was greater than that but we probably included a few corners that would challenge our 7.2m Campy and might have been loose change for a nippy Alfa. As you can see below, we made it and and continued down the other side, stopping just short of Cortina where there was allegedly a camper van parking site ... Above (top-bottom, l-r): we made it; so did some other bloke. years ago; Shan and Campy resting; the descent wasn't much less daunting as you can see from the Dolomites disappearing into the background. There was a bit of a story about the bicycle, now being used, inter alia, as a wind vane. Apparently this bloke cycled to the top (2236m/7336ft) whereupon he cast his steed to the ground and vowed never to get on another bike ever again. The machine was rescued by the local restaurant and converted to its current glorious state (in 2016). How our bloke completed the rest of his journey remained a mystery to us. Nowadays the Passo Giau is frequently included in the annual Giro d'Italia. Back to our camping site for the night, it appeared to be part of a small aerodrome just to the west of Cortina but there was no human activity to be found, just some deserted building and a long straight piece of tarmac that appeared to be a runway. It was late and we decided to chance it. As it turned out our decision seemed safe when we woke early the next morning to the splendour of the Dolomites. There was a sweaty moment when a helicopter arrived at the far end of the runway and we thought we'd be in trouble but they ignored us even though we had to pass close by to exit the "park". Viva Italia! Above (l-r): Campy on its chocks on the runway; I can't help feeling this imposing Dolomite on the outskirts of Cortina must have a name (comments welcome). We had a brief tour of Cortina but couldn't really see anything that tempted us to find parking for a 7.2m camper to explore it further. We were also keen to head almost due South for three hours to the coast and discover what the Lido di Jesolo had to offer. We only spent a couple of nights there and weren't that interested in what the Lido beaches had to offer us to be honest but.we did want to explore the North Western end of the Venice lagoon, an endeavour turned out to be a little more eventful than we had bargained for. Before we even started, Shan was looking at the Herculean effort of a 42 km bike ride taking in the entrance to the Venice Lagoon and the a side journey into the marshy midst of the "lagoon" North of Murano (renowned for its glass) and even Burano (famous for rhyming with Murano[3] and also its colourful house and lace production). All went well on our outward journey to check out Venice in the distance and on the picturesque ride out to Lio Piccolo, incorporating a scenic loop teeming with bird life, including flamingos, a bird we'll never tire of looking at. The waterside path was sound all the way around to the much photographed Casa Rossa. At some point in our journey we'd escaped a complete downpour by ducking into a stranger's shed in the middle of nowhere. As the path became narrower, neglected and slippery beyond Casa Rossa cycling became a bit tricky. I was pedalling in front until I was stopped in my tracks by a stream of expletive invective just as I was about to re-enter the main Lio Piccolo courtyard[4], completing our rural route. The air had turned blue. Above (l-r, top-bottom): Shan looking fresh with hints of Venice behind her across the lagoon; heading out to Lio Piccolo; gorgeous birds abounded in the shallow waters; there were flocks of flamingos but this caught my fancy; the clouds threatened all day but at least one of us remained dry; I'm not sure about this photo; but I am about this one of the much photographed Casa Rossa, in sepia here for a different perspective; the scene of the crime, the path and "canal" approaching Lio Piccolo; smoke break (yes that also carried on working after submersion) from the speed record attempt). I spun around and at first there was no Shan in view but the stream of cursing remained in earshot. I reluctantly turned my eyes to the slimy water about two metres below the slippery path and there, flailing around in the water, lay the right half of my beloved who had skidded off the path and plunged into the black/green morass. I ditched my bike and ran back. The scenario wasn't good. I suppose it was a blessing that the water wasn't that deep and only half of Shan was soaked. But her bike was submerged and, perhaps worse, her handlebar bag had been open and had cast its contents into the slimy, silty murky water. Evidently she had somersaulted going down the bank, and was lying on her side covered in black silt and long strands of green algae. After a renewed &*%$£@ she set about feeling about in the mire for the contents of her handlebar bag. The first item she located was her phone and she threw it up the bank for me to catch. No sooner had I caught it than it started to ring. I didn't answer, more concerned with extracting my wife and the rest of her possessions from the debacle. Miraculously her wallet and vape accoutrements were soon located and I was able to drag first her bike and then herself up the slippery bank. "Don't you dare put this is your blog and don't even think about taking any photos of me in this state!" I dared not ignore these words although the sight of a person with one half relatively pristine and the other black with green tassels and mounted on a similarly clad pushbike was horribly tempting. Being essentially a person with a great sense of humour, Shan came to regret this command and is now, ten years on, helping me with the details, and regaling friends with how she broke the land speed record for a Boardman, spurred on by what had become freezing cold, on the return journey to our campsite. That wasn't the end of it though! She had dreamed of a hot shower on the last record-breaking stretch and immediately took herself off to the shower block to soak herself fully clothed to get all the muck off before a second phase cleansing only to find that the proprietors had neglected to rekindle the hot water system early enough for the first guests of the season (us). Coming next ...  Above: the scene from our train window as we sat stationary at the foot of Lake Garda in 2007 for more than an hour en route from Venice to Milan ... we had to return but it took 10 years.
Epic "Campy" trip from Oxfordshire to Venice and back #2 ... heading back up to Po Valley with its "pocket cities". [Endnotes]:
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